Australian Streaming Music Services Compared

Published: July 19, 2012

Just 12 months ago us Aussies were left out in the cold when it came to streaming music services. Now, we have a dozen or so choices, letting us listen to pretty much anything, anywhere. The problem now is which service to choose!

The best services work on your computer, your smartphone and your home devices like Sonos and Apple TV. Most also offer offline listening, so you can download tracks for listening without a web connection.

Most are subscription-based, but many have free options too, and virtually all offer a free trial period.

In this article we review the top ten contenders, helping you find the best music streaming service for your listening habits, your gear and your wallet.

We’d also love to get your feedback – which service do you use and what do you think of it? Have we missed one? Let us know on our Facebook page!

The Streaming Music Services:

Spotify

Rdio

MOG

JB HiFi NOW

Songl

Pandora

Sony Music Unlimited

Rara Music

BBM Music

Samsung Music Hub

(we haven’t included Microsoft’s Zune music service as they’ve announced it’s shortly changing to Xbox Music…we’ll keep you updated on that one!)

1. Spotify

Spotify is a very slick music streaming service with three subscription options. The PC and Mac desktop apps are fantastic, with plenty of options for exploring and discovering new music, however they don’t provide Airplay support for streaming to an Apple TV or other Airplay devices. We also found that many tracks are not available in Australia (yet) so the 12 million track count may be less down under. A recent update for the mobile app added a ‘Radio’ feature that lets you play a radio station based on a selected track, album or artist which is great for discovering new music.

2. Rdio

Rdio is a versatile streaming service with apps for most smartphone platforms, Windows and Mac desktop apps, a web streamer and Sonos and Roku streaming. The range of music is excellent with good coverage of left-field and indie music in particular.

3. MOG

MOG is a very recent arrival, brought to Australia in partnership with Telstra. With a very intuitive mobile interface and great desktop apps we think it’s the most user-friendly of the bunch. What really sets it apart is the many ways of discovering new music, from Artist Radio and social sharing, to a ‘Just For You’ feature that suggests albums you might like based on music you’ve liked previously – these are available on the mobile app too, unlike others like Spotify.

4. JB HiFi NOW

This is the only service from an Australian retailer and they’ve done a pretty good job. It’s one of the cheapest options and has a good interface and decent track selection. The Mix Tape feature is a fun and intuitive way of creating and sharing playlists.

5. Songl

Songl is an Australian-developed streaming service, currently in beta mode and are currently not taking any new trial subscriptions. We’ve tried it out on our in-store Sonos system and enjoyed it a lot, especially the Australian singles and albums charts dating back to the ’40s and ’70s respectively. Aah, memories…..

Cost: Premium $12.99/month

Works on: PC, Mac, iOS, Android, Sonos

Bit rate: Up to 320 kbs

# of tracks: 4 million +

Pros: Aussie owned

Cons: Currently in beta only, mobile interface needs some issues ironed out

6. Pandora

One of the original music streaming services, Pandora is part of the ‘Music Genome Project’ and has the best music recommendation system out there. Just enter an artist, track or genre and it will create a station based on that, and learn your taste as it goes along.

Only very recently available in Australia (it previously blocked Australian IP addresses). It’s a web player only, no mobile apps are currently available down under.

Cost: Free (with ads) or $3.99/month or $36/year for Pandora One

Works on: PC, Mac

Bit rate: Up to 192 kbs (Pandora One version)

# of tracks: Not stated

Pros: Very simple to use, brilliant music recommendation and discovery

7. Sony Music Unlimited

Sony’s service (previously known as Qriosity) is designed for the Sony ecosystem as well as PC and mobile users. It’s best feature is Music Sync, allowing your PC-based music collection to sync to Music Unlimited, and teach it your musical tastes so it can give you more of what you like. Its music recommendation engine is also very effective.

8. Rara

Rara is a music streamer that works via a web interface on PC or Mac, and as an Android app. The web interface is not as intuitive as the other systems and takes a little getting used to. It learns your tastes and will suggest music ‘Just for you’.

Cost: Intro rate of $0.99 for 3 months then $7.99 per month; Android app is $2.99/$12.99 per month

9. BBM Music

BBM Music is an unusual service for BlackBerry users only. It allows just 50 songs to be selected from the catalog at any one time, but has the ability to let you share and listen to tracks that your BlackBerry contacts have in their system – forcing you to discover new music. It’s very social, but won’t be to everyone’s taste and perhaps better in conjunction with another BlackBerry-compatible music app like Rdio.

10. Samsung Music Hub

Samsung’s music streaming offering is similar to Sony’s Music Unlimited in that it’s designed to work across the Samsung product ecosystem of phones, tablets, smart TVs and Blu-ray players. It still has some bugs to be ironed out though as the Android app force-closes quite frequently and some of the user interface is poorly designed (like not being able to create playlists on the fly or play a song without adding it to a playlist first) but these should be ironed out soon.

Conclusion

Which music streaming service is right for you? It will depend mostly on the devices you own, and what you want to spend. For smartphone owners, Spotify is one of the best options with a good mobile app and excellent desktop player. MOG, with a great mobile and desktop interface, huge music collection, and full Apple Airplay support is also a frontrunner, it’s only let down by the inability to create playlists or add tracks to playlists on the mobile app. You can try both on a free trial and see which suits you best.

Pandora is perfect for anyone wanting an easy streaming service to their PC or Mac with a music recommendation engine that does the thinking for you. Samsung and Sony fans will likely gravitate towards Music Hub and Music Unlimited respectively, and BlackBerry owners might want to give BBM Music a go – the good thing with all of the above is the monthly commitment is low, and if a service is not working for you, you can easily cancel and try another one.

What are your thoughts – did we miss anything? Got any other recommendations or comments? Let us know on our Facebook page!